Retailers

Visa Inc.’s new U.S. EMV initiative will have far-reaching consequences for merchants and card issuers, but the other card networks may not follow it exactly in drawing their roadmaps for migrating to advanced chip card technologies, certain observers say.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the demise of the decoupled-debit card may have been greatly exaggerated.

Most large U.S. merchants easily will comply with Visa Inc.’s first level of incentives to make payment terminals ready to accept contact and contactless EMV cards next year as part of the card brand’s U.S. push toward chip card technology, but it may take smaller merchants a year or two to get there, payment industry experts suggest.

When newly acquired card customers from HSBC’s U.S. card program and ING’s online bank are folded into Capital One Financial Corp.’s existing base, they will have a rapidly expanding array of digital transaction and payments channels from which to choose.

Consumers accustomed to receiving coupons for product samples or trial sizes of laundry detergent or dish soap in the mail soon instead may receive private-label prepaid cards they could use at a retailer to obtain full-size versions.

If data-security standards compliance in the United States mirrors what has occurred in Europe, the onset of EMV chip-and-PIN technology in the U.S. will not mean major retailers will skip validating their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard each year, the head of the PCI Security Standards Council contends.

Instead of dipping its toe into the mobile-payments pool, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. intends to make a splash with a retail application that can enable a merchant’s employees to complete sales transactions anywhere in or out of the store.

Visa Inc. has introduced a series of incentives to spur the U.S. to adopt chip cards–a change once considered as likely as the country switching to the metric system.

Online retailers looking to reduce their number of declined transactions from different countries have a new tool available in their payments-processing kit.

One man has shared his Starbucks prepaid card with the world, allowing anyone to spend and reload it using a feature of the card that was once called a security flaw.

Visa Inc. plans to accelerate the U.S. migration to EMV contact and contactless chip technology, the card brand announced Aug. 9.

The private-equity firm buying Hypercom Corp.’s U.S. payment-terminal business says it has no plans to make any disruptive changes.

When the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council was formed five years ago to establish industry standards, General Manager Bob Russo figured about 50 to 60 merchants, associations or banks would participate. He was in for a surprise.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has set Aug. 29 as its deadline for gathering suggestions from participating organizations for security compliance topics that need further study.

Online Resources Corp.'s second-quarter revenue grew 5.4% year-over-year, to $38.3 million, from higher sales of e-commerce services.

VeriFone Systems Inc. on Aug. 4 finished its purchase of rival terminal maker Hypercom Corp. after it reached a settlement with the Justice Department to sell Hypercom’s U.S. terminal business to the private-equity firm Gores Group LLC.

Chris Olson doesn't count himself among EMV's detractors or evangelists. "It's a lot like Beta or VHS, you don't really know how it's going to turn out," says Fremont Bank's COO on the question of whether EMV cards (debit or credit cards embedded with a computer chip that meets the standard named for creators Europay, MasterCard and Visa), magnetic stripe cards or some other kind of point-of-sale plastic will dominate the U.S. card market in the future.

Though First Data Corp.’s second-quarter earnings show losses tied to debt service from a 2007 takeover by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., company executives pointed to positive revenue numbers and strong liquidity during an Aug. 3 conference call with analysts.

Visa Inc. fired the first shot in the post-Durbin pricing war, but MasterCard Worldwide is not ready to pull the trigger, at least not yet.

Touting heavier consumer and commercial card-spending as the economy gradually improves, MasterCard Worldwide on Aug. 3 said its second-quarter purchase volume showed healthy increases in all worldwide regions, with its biggest gains in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.